Newt Gingrich batted back a question on a $300,000 payment his firm received from the troubled lender Freddie Mac, saying the government-backed entity had only paid him for “advice on precisely what they didn’t do.”

Gingrich said at the CNBC debate in Michigan that he didn’t do any lobbying for Freddie Mac and hadn’t given them any advice that could have helped feed the 2008 financial crisis.

“I have never done any lobbying. Every contract that was written during the period when I was out of office said I would do no lobbying,” he said.

As for his advice to Freddie Mac, Gingrich said: “Unfortunately, I was right.”